Most of us will agree that hangovers are no fun. As we wallow in our seemingly endless hangover abyss, we begin to use whatever mental power we can muster to discover the ultimate way to cure hangovers and end them for good. The good thing about all this is that it is possible. But, to know how to prevent them, you have to know what causes them.

The first thing to watch for is dehydration. Alcohol dehydrates your body in a way that causes a large loss of water throughout the body. This massive loss of water, through constant urination, ultimately helps cause the headaches, dizziness, and thirst you experience. So drink plenty of water when you’re out. You will need it.

Second, drinking too much alcohol too quickly, or binge drinking, is also a major cause. When you give up so much alcohol in a short period of time, your body doesn’t have enough time to supply enough substances to break down the alcohol completely, allowing toxins to work their way through your body. Also, when people drink too much, they tend to mix drinks too… maybe they just don’t REMEMBER to do it?

Third, mixing drinks can easily cause hangovers due to mixing carbonated drinks, such as light beers, with hard liquors, which take longer to break down. Carbonation speeds up the metabolism in your body. Imagine a salad versus a steak. Steak is hard liquor. Which do you think will digest faster? Another contributing factor to mixing drinks and getting hangovers would be mixing drinks with more congeners or fermentation byproducts that exaggerate hangovers.

Congeners can be a terrible force in hangovers and can be found not only in red wines and dark liqueurs like brandy, bourbon and whiskey, congeners are also present as flavor additives such as zinc.

Drinking on an empty stomach is always a great way to get a hangover, as there is nothing in your stomach to ‘dilute’ the alcohol that is there. It is important to eat foods such as dairy products or fatty foods (such as dishes with a lot of olive oil) that tend to ‘stick to the stomach’ for longer. This lingering in the stomach will also provide a barrier between the alcohol and the stomach lining which, in response, will lessen the nausea often experienced with less in the stomach. Try to put something substantial in there before you drink.

Vitamin B12 is another thing that should be mentioned as it becomes deficient as the human body processes alcohol. The liver is doing an amazing job of processing alcohol and unfortunately it DOES require fuel. Now, the ‘fuels’ are a great combination of enzymes and substances in the body, but vitamin B12 is only one part of the whole process and when we drink and it goes down, we get hangover-related drowsiness and lightheadedness. Many smart drinkers enjoy a small vitamin B12 supplement that often works. I also recommend hangover supplements like Chasers. They are amazing.

One more cause I’d like to mention here (there are more causes, visit the site for more information) is the byproduct of alcohol fermentation produced by the liver called acetaldehyde. This thing is nasty. If it doesn’t break down enough, it will make you sick. It is even more toxic than alcohol. However, our bodies DO have enzymes and substances that attack this substance and convert it into something else called acetate, which is non-toxic. Phew! In fact, there are drugs for recovering alcoholics that stop the acetaldehyde attackers from doing their job, resulting in a kind of brutal hangover, too terrible to mention here, that you never want to get.

All the information here is a basic summary and I recommend a visit to HangoverNetwork.com for more information. However, one thing I would like to mention is that not all people have the same tolerance and substances. Many people do not have high levels of enzymes that break down acetaldehyde and have lower tolerances. So remember to control your pace because only you know your body best. Be careful and have fun!